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Washington Counties

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Washington Counties

There are 39 counties in the state of Washington. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory and admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. The first counties were created from unorganized territory in 1845.

King County, Washington

King County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Seattle
Year Organized: 1852
Square Miles: 2,126

Court House:

516 Third Avenue
County Courthouse
Seattle, WA 98104-2305

Etymology - Origin of County Name

William Rufus de Vane King, the thirteenth vice president of the United States. (The county was "renamed" in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1986.)

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

King County was created 22 December 1852 from Thurston County

King County, located in Western Washington, covers some 2,100 square miles extending from the crest of the Cascade Range to Puget Sound, including Vashon Island. It is Washington's most populous county and contains its largest city -- Seattle. It is the commercial center of the Pacific Northwest with public and private enterprises including Boeing, Costco, Group Health Cooperative, Washington Mutual, Starbucks Coffee Co., Amazon.com, University of Washington, Microsoft, PACCAR Inc, Weyerhaeuser, Seattle City Light, and the Port of Seattle, which operates the nation's eighth-largest port as well as Sea-Tac International Airport. King County also retains some 1,500 farms, most under 50 acres. For millennia the area was home to peaceful, culturally rich, Lushootseed-speaking tribes. Settlement came in 1852, with lumber, hops, coal, and fish constituting first industries. Historical milestones include the founding of the University of Washington (1861); the Great Seattle Fire (1889); the Klondike gold rush that boomed Seattle (1897); the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (1909); the founding of Seattle City Light (1910) and the Port of Seattle (1911); construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal (1917) and the Lake Washington Floating Bridge (1940), the latter resulting in the bourgeoning of Eastside communities; the Century 21 World's Fair (1962), and the creation of the county-wide agency Metro (1958) to deal first with water quality and later (1972) with public transit. King County boasts a diverse population, vibrant arts communities and institutions, an expanding economy, an increasingly green outlook and policy orientation, as well as high housing costs and traffic-clogged roads.
File 7905: Full Text >

The county was formed out of territory within Thurston County on December 22, 1852, by the Oregon Territory legislature, and was named after Alabama resident William R. King, Vice President under President Franklin Pierce. Seattle was made the county seat on January 11, 1853.

King County originally extended to the Olympic Peninsula. According to historian Bill Speidel, when peninsular prohibitionists threatened to shut down Seattle's saloons, Doc Maynard engineered a peninsular independence movement; King County lost what is now Kitsap County, but preserved its entertainment industry.

County logo, 1969-2007On February 24, 1986, the King County Council passed Council Motion 6461, "setting forth the historical basis for the 'renaming' of King County in honor of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.". Because only the state can charter counties, this change was not made official until April 19, 2005, when Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed Senate Bill 5332 into law. Due primarily to the advocacy of councilmember Larry Gossett, the County Council voted on February 27, 2006 to change the county's logo from a royal crown to an image of King's face. On March 12, 2007, the new logo was unveiled

Geography

King County has nearly twice the land area of the state of Rhode Island. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 2,307 square miles (5,974 km²). It is the 11th largest county in Washington (of 39) by area. 2,126 square miles (5,506 km²) of it is land and 180 square miles (467 km²) of it is water. 7.82% of the total area is water. The highest point in the county is Mount Daniel at 2426 meters (7,959 feet) above sea level.

King County borders Snohomish County to the north, Kitsap County to the west, Kittitas County to the east, and Pierce County to the south. It also shares a small border with Chelan County to the northeast. King County includes Vashon Island and Maury Island in Puget Sound.

Neighboring Counties:

Snohomish County, Washington - north
Chelan County, Washington - east/northeast
Kittitas County, Washington - east/southeast
Pierce County, Washington - south
Kitsap County, Washington - west

Cities and Towns:

- Algona	city	Incorporated Area
- Auburn	city	Incorporated Area
- Beaux Arts	town
- Bellevue	city	Incorporated Area
- Black Diamond	city	Incorporated Area
- Bothell	city	Incorporated Area
- Burien	city	Incorporated Area
- Carnation	city	Incorporated Area
- Clyde Hill	city	Incorporated Area
- Covington	city	Incorporated Area
- Des Moines	city	Incorporated Area
- Duvall	city	Incorporated Area
- Enumclaw	city	Incorporated Area
- Federal Way	city	Incorporated Area
- Hunts Point	town	Incorporated Area
- Issaquah	city	Incorporated Area
- Kenmore	city	Incorporated Area
- Kent	city	Incorporated Area
- Kirkland	city	Incorporated Area
- Lake Forest Park	city	Incorporated Area
- Maple Valley	city	Incorporated Area
- Medina	city	Incorporated Area
- Mercer Island	city	Incorporated Area
- Mill Creek	city	Incorporated Area
- Newcastle	city	Incorporated Area
- Normandy Park	city	Incorporated Area
- North Bend	city	Incorporated Area
- Pacific	city	Incorporated Area
- Redmond	city	Incorporated Area
- Renton	city	Incorporated Area
- Sammamish	city	Incorporated Area
- Seatac	city	Incorporated Area
- Seattle (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Shoreline	city	Incorporated Area
- Skykomish	town	Incorporated Area
- Snoqualmie	city	Incorporated Area
- Tukwila	city	Incorporated Area
- Woodinville	city	Incorporated Area
- Yarrow Point	town	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."